PYONGYANG, June 23 (Xinhuanet) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Thursday again turned down US demands to "scrap the nuclear program first," and listed the elimination of US nuclear threats against it and US willingness to co-exist peacefully with it as prerequisites to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

    The DPRK's Rodong Sinmun newspaper in a commentary rejected the persistent US demands for Pyongyang to scrap its nuclear program first, stressing that the prerequisite to denuclearization is for the US to discard its nuclear threat to the DPRK and switch over to peaceful co-existence.

    The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula entails turning the entire area, including the north and the south, into a nuclear-free zone and eventually removing the danger of a nuclear war from the peninsula, the commentary said.

    The newspaper criticized the US as misleading public opinion bycreating the impression that the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula means that the DPRK would first have to scrap it's nuclear program immediately.

    "If the Korean Peninsula is to be turned into a nuclear-free zone, a peace zone, the US nuclear threat to the DPRK must be eliminated, first of all," it said.

    "The danger of a nuclear war cannot be dispelled from the Korean Peninsula and its denuclearization also cannot be achieved when the United States refuses to recognize the system of the DPRK and show the willingness to co-exist with it," the commentary explained.

    "It is a consistent stand of the DPRK government to terminate the US nuclear threat and realize the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. There will be no change in its principled stand in the future," it added. Enditem